This invention relates to computerized travel planning systems.
Travel planning systems are used to produce itineraries and prices by selecting suitable travel units from databases containing geographic, scheduling and pricing information. In the airline industry, fundamental travel units include xe2x80x9cflightsxe2x80x9d (sequences of regularly scheduled takeoffs and landings assigned a common identifier) and xe2x80x9cfaresxe2x80x9d (prices published by airlines for travel between two points). The term xe2x80x9citineraryxe2x80x9d is often used to refer to a sequence of flights on particular dates, and the term xe2x80x9cpricing solutionxe2x80x9d is often used to refer to a combination of fares and itineraries that satisfies a travel request.
The databases usually contain schedule information provided by airlines, typically in the so-called Standard Schedules Information Manual (SSIM) format, and usually fares published by airlines and resellers, typically provided through the intermediary Airline Tariff Publishing Company (ATPCO). The database may also contain xe2x80x9cavailabilityxe2x80x9d information that determines whether space is available on flights, or this may be obtained through communication links to external sources such as airlines.
Presently, so-called computer reservation system (CRSs) operate to produce fare and schedule information. There are four generally known computer reservation systems that operate in the United States, Sabre, Galileo, Amadeus and WorldSpan. The typical CRS contains a periodically updated central database that is accessed by subscribers such as travel agents through computer terminals. The subscribers use the computer reservation system to determine what airline flights are operating in a given market, what fares are offered and whether seats are available on flights to make bookings and issue tickets to clients.
The computer reservation systems typically conduct searches using the information contained in the database to produce itineraries that satisfy a received request. The search results are sorted and returned to the requester s computer for display. Typically, the number of possible itineraries and pricing solutions that are returned by a CRS is a small portion of the total set that may satisfy a passengers request.
According to one aspect of the invention, a computer storage medium storing a data structure representation of groups of fare components that are mutually dependent with respect to pricing includes a priceable unit cores data structure and a priceable unit labels data structure corresponding to a group of priceable unit cores and sets of faring atoms.
The priceable unit cores data structure can include a fares field for storing a list of fares. The priceable unit labels data structure can include a field corresponding to priceable unit cores for storing a set of priceable unit cores and faring atom sets for storing a list of sets of faring atoms per slice of a journey.
According to another aspect of the invention, a method of determining priceable units includes enumerating a collection of faring markets and enumerating collections of sets of faring components by selecting a set of fare components for each faring market. The method also includes enumerating collections of faring components by operating on sets of faring components to evaluate deferred record-2""s on collections of fare components and representing the enumerated collections of fare components by priceable unit labels and priceable unit cores.